Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Frumple]

... that's going to lead to some amusing attempts to incriminate each other in MP games, isn't it.

E: Though now I kinda' wonder. If both nations hit the same province on the same turn with the spell, and the first one conquers the province... does the second group join up with the first, or attack it?

[USEC_OFFICER]

I suppose that I might as well sperg about the new Caelum summons, since I just realized that I could do this 10x more efficiently and get all of the Greater Daeva faster. Oh well.

Spoiler: Caelum's New Summons (click to show/hide)

If you haven't noticed, Caelum's new summons are divided into half. A good half requiring astral, and a bad half requiring fire and death. I've heard of worse ways to divide up a list.

Ahurani - Conjuration 5, requires 2S1W and 12 Astral Pearls
HP: 14, Protection: 0, MR: 16, Morale: 13
Combat stats have an average of 12, nothing outstanding or terrible.
Encrumbance: 1, Move: 3/12, Leadership: 40
Usual slots except for feet.
2W1H
Sacred, Underwater Regeneration (50%!), Amphibian, Blunt/Slash/Pierce Resistant(!), Cold Resistant (9), Poison Resistant (15), Magic Being, Need not Eat, Flying, Recuperation, Darkvision (100%), Disease Healer (1), Gift of Water Breathing (20)

The only real reason I can see for using an Ahurani is for expanding into water or healing diseases. They have pretty terrible HP for thugs, but 50% regeneration should make them pretty tough, especially since they take only half damage from all normal attacks. Against mages or people with magic weapons they'll die pretty quickly, but against indies or PD they should be okay if you give them some good gear. Especially since they can cast quicken self and winter ward to help themselves in combat. But other than that... They could cast falling frost with a bracelet or something? Some buffs maybe? I dunno, spending 12~22 gems to get a 2-3W caster doesn't sound too great to me.

Celestial Yazad - Conjuration 6, 4S and 40 Astral Pearls
I get the feeling that the Celestial Yazad spell gives you a random Yazad, which are probably some variant on 3X3S2H. I might as well talk about the type of Yazad I got, instead of delaying it for my next ramble about summoning (which will probably come out after the dominions inspector gets updated).

Yazad of Justice
HP: 16, Protection: 0, MR: 17, Morale: 14
Average of 12 in all combat stats, annoyingly enough.
Encumbrance 2, Move: 3/12, Leadership: 95
The usual slots, and starts with a magic spear.
3F3S2H
Sacred, Awe (3), Shock Resistant (10), Fire Resistant (21), Cold Resistant (5), Magic Being, Flying, Old Age (498/485)

Assuming that all of the Celestial Yazad are similar to the one of justice, I don't really see a use for them. You could use them as thugs, but they've only got 16 HP and okay stats for a 40 gem creature. Yes, you do have awe, but awe isn't perfect and it'll only take a couple hits to bust his skull in. As a combat caster... It might be worth it. Especially if he's at the head of a communion and thus can fling around some of the nastier fire spells that your enemies won't be expecting. Or some battlefield wide buffs/debuffs. And of course he can also take over summoning some of Caelum's other national summons, freeing up your pretender to do other stuff. I'm still not convinced that he's worth 40 gems though.

Fravashi - Conjuration 7, 3S and 30 Astral Pearls
HP: 35, Protection: 0, MR: 18, Morale: 18
13 in all combat skills, oddly enough.
Encumbrance: 1, Movement: 4/4, Leadership: 0
The usual slots, no surprises here. Starts with a sacred circlet as a weapon, which is nothing special and barely better than a fist.
3A2S3H
Sacred, Awe (4), Shock Resistant (21), Fire Resistant (15), Magic Being, Need not Eat, Ethereal, Flying.

Basically a supercharged version of the Fravashi that appear to protect your commanders. _{I still have no clue how that works.} They are also pretty damn good. Built in Ethereal and awe, pretty good magic paths for buffing, and a good dollop of HP to soak up any hits that get through. No SC by any means, but they should be able to stomp over PD pretty easily with a bit of gear. And best of all they're 3H priests and so can claim any thrones you want. Unfortunately they come a bit too late in the game, so everyone should have stuff up to protect against thugs, and with 2S they can easily be mind dueled to death. But they are definitely usable, if expensive.

Call Amesha Spenta would go here, but I haven't checked if they've changed at all, so I might as well go into the evil summons.

Call Daevas - Conjuration 5, 2D1F and 15 Death Gems for 3
HP: 16, Protection: 12 (no helmet), MR: 14, Morale: 14
Strength: 12, Attack Skill: 13, Defense: 13, Precision: 12
Encumbrance: 3, Movement: 3/12
Sacred, Fear (5), Shock Resistant (5), Fire Resistant (5), Flying, Demon, Chaos Power (1!)
Wields a Magic Spear(5 dam, 2 attack, 5 length)

The Daevas are pretty much the evil counterpart of the Yazatas (AKA: The adorable ones). But unfortunately they don't really compare. You get twice as much Yazatas for 15 Pearls, which makes them both cuter and cheaper. Even worse, the Daevas have Chaos Power which is a bit pile of shit. Caelum needs gold badly, and I've found that people rarely take turmoil in MP. So unless you feel like doing some raiding with the Raptors or get lucky with enemy scales, you shouldn't bother with the Daevas. Unless you feel like mixing in some grunts with fear into your front line, or using them as decoys for enemy priests to protect the rest of your evil summons I guess.

Call Jahi - Conjuration 5, 3D1F and 15 Death Gems
Pairika
HP: 14, Protection: 0, MR: 17, Morale: 30
Strength: 15, Attack: 12, Defense: 12, Precision: 12
Encumbrance: 1, Movement: 3/13, Leadership: 65
2F2D3B2H
Fear (7), Fire Resistant (9), Does not Eat, Demon, Flying, Stealthy (60), Seduction, Chaos Power (1!), Scale Walls. Is somehow not sacred.

I'll have to do some testing to see if call Jahi always summons a Pairika, but still. Holy shit. 15 gems for a 2 death, 2 fire, 3 blood caster. Who can fly, sneak through enemy lands, preach and seduce enemy commanders. They're cheap to summon, can cast some good spells (especially with boosters) and can help you get some of the nicer equipment in blood. Like boots of youth for your old commanders. Of course Caelum will never be a major blood nation, but the ability to summon some great blood hunters should not be overlooked. Of course in combat they're squishy and likely to get smited by a priest, but for 15 gems? It's practically a steal. I would not be surprised to see their cost go up in later patches, they're just that good. It could also be a mistake too. The Call Yata spell mentions Pairika by name after all.

Call Yata - Conjuration 6, 3D2F and 40 Death Gems

Again, I get the feeling that multiple types of Yata exist, so I'll do some more testing on this. But for your reading pleasure, here's the Daeva of Shooting Stars.

Daeva of Shooting Stars
HP: 17, Protection: 0, Magic Resistance: 17, Morale: 14
Average of 12.5 in combat stats, nothing special.
Encumbrance: 1, Movement: 3/12, Leadership: 80
Usual slots, and starts with an astral bolt ranged attack that isn't intrinsic or amazing.
3S3D2H
Sacred, Fear (, Shock Resistant (5), Fire Resistant (5), Need not Eat, Demon, Flying, Bringer of Misfortune (5), Chaos Power (1!)

Everything I said for the Yazad of Justice pretty much applies here. Can't really thug, too expensive for what they can do. And of course since they're demons, they generally have other annoying effects too. Like Chaos Power.

Call Greater Daeva should go here, but again I haven't summoned all of them yet to comment. At the very least they seem to have an opposite thing going with the Spentas, so they could be interesting.

tl;dr version: As things stand, LA Caelum is laughing. For 15 gems and easily obtainable magic paths they get a commander that can seduce and blast combat magic and other fun stuff. Realistically all of Caelum's summons are high up in the research chain, rather expensive and kinda underwhelming. Not entirely useless, but it's hard to justify the costs of some of the summons.

Also, I tried out Parting of the Soul. It's definitely useful. Each use can paralyze the target and summons 4~ black hawks. The black hawks are chaff, but they're flying chaff and appear right next to the enemy. In other words, the spell is perfect for disrupting the scripting of the enemy. Anybody set to attack flyers will go for the hawks instead, and anybody charging will probably bunch up to deal with them (thus allowing you to thunderstrike them to death). Against SCs/thugs it's great too. Even if the spell doesn't paralyze them, it'll still summon some chaff to disrupt their buffing cycle and mess with their orders. It's not a silver bullet though, but it certainly has its uses.

[E. Albright]

E: Though now I kinda' wonder. If both nations hit the same province on the same turn with the spell, and the first one conquers the province... does the second group join up with the first, or attack it?

I'd assume since the spell would be producing two armies of the same (special independent) faction, even if the casters are from different nations the armies would all attack at once.

[USEC_OFFICER]

More posting about great summoning.

Like I thought the Celestial Yazad/Call Yatas spells can summon different types of commanders. The Daeva are all 3X3D2H casters with Fear (, where X is either Fire, Water or Astral. The 3S ones are interesting because they take 3D2F to summon, but have Astral to break you into the good summons. In other words LA Caelum technically doesn't need to take Astral. Admittedly they'll have to dump lots of Death gems until they finally get the 3S dudes, and lots of Astral gems until they get the right Yazad, but it's still a thing. Speaking of Yazads they're sorta all over the place. All of them have 2H and awe, but as servants of the Amesha Spentas they have a good spread of magic paths among a bunch of different dudes. They could be 3E2S2N, 4W2S, 4F2S, 4A2S, 2A4S, and maybe something else that I missed. Overall not 100% amazing for 40 gems. And that counts for both the Yazad and Yatas.

Spoiler: Amesha Spenta/Greater Daeva (click to show/hide)

The Spenta are largely unchanged... Except a few of them now how scale affecting abilities. Yeah. The Spenta of Waters/Sky and Metals/Animals all increase order, while the Spenta of Plants increases Growth. Anyways, onto the Greater Daeva.

Nanghaithya the Daeva of Discontent
HP: 39, Protection: 11, MR: 18, Morale: 18
Strength: 13, Attack: 14, Defense: 14, Precision: 14
Encumbrance: 1, Movement: 3/16, Leadership: 145
Usual slots, no special equipment.
4E3D4H
Sacred, Fear (, Invulnerability (15), Fire Resistant (15), Need not Eat, Demon, Flying, Stealthy (25!), Supply Bonus (100!), Spy, Causes Unrest (10), Chaos Power (1)

Get used to seeing death here, all but one of the Daevas have it. Nanghaithya is... special. 4H, Spy and Causes Unrest makes you think that she'd be perfect for disrupting enemy provinces before you attack, but she has stealthy 25, which is absolutely horrible and will make it easy for the enemy to spot her. But at least all of that unrest will help her stats due to combat power, so she wouldn't be a complete wimp especially with some gear. But with her cost it's probably better just to use her as a buffer for your troops. With 4 Earth magic she can cast all of the normal/basic earth spells and giving all of your grunts weapons of sharpness could be useful. If you're vaguely curious, Nanghaithya is paired with the Spenta of Earth.

Indra the Daeva of Frozen Minds
HP: 44, Protection: 0, MR: 18, Morale: 18
Strength: 14, Attack: 14, Defense: 14, Precision: 14
Encumbrance: 1, Movement: 3/16, Leadership: 160
Usual slots, has a magic staff which is an okay weapon.
3F4D3H
Sacred, Fear (, Invulnerability (15), Fire Resistant (21), Need not Eat, Demon, Flying, Stealthy (25!), Heretic (5!), Chaos Power (1)

Indra is pretty special too. Again, 25 stealth isn't much in the grand scheme of things. But I believe that his power heretic ability always activates every turn, so I suppose that you can just fly him around enemy territory to try and shred their dominion. Probably the best thing to do is give him a fire booster to summon Antrax, which needs 4F3D and 50 death gems. And is also a better thug/SC with its banefire shield and banefire strike.

...

What I'm trying to say is that all of the Daeva are underwhelming for dudes you have to shell out 60 gems for. If you're wondering, Indra is paired up with the Spenta of Fire.

Taurvi the Daeva of Destruction
HP: 39, Protection: 10, MR: 18, Morale: 18
Strength: 13, Attack: 14, Defense: 14, Precision: 14
Encumbrance: 1, Movement: 3/16, Leadership: 165
Usual slots, uses her fists to fight.
4F3E2D3H
Sacred, Fear (, Invulnerability (15), Fire Resistant (23), Need not Eat, Demon, Flying, Recuperation, Old Age (1033/1000), Chaos Power (1), Spreads Chaos

It fucking figures that a Daeva that spreads chaos doesn't have stealth. Oh well, at least she's pretty good in the magic department. With Phoenix Power she can fling around fire storms in battle and summon volcanos in the overworld map. Oh, and apparently she starts out old for some freaking reason. I assume that it's because she's opposed to the Spenta of Waters, which has a whole healing/health thing going on. Next please.

Zaurvi the Daeva of Aging
HP: 39, Protection: 7, MR: 18, Morale: 18
Strength: 13, Attack: 14, Defense: 14, Precision: 14
Encumbrance: 1, Movement: 3/16, Leadership: 145
Usual slots, believes in the power of kung fu (aka attacks with fists).
5D3H
Sacred, Fear (10), Invulnerability (15), Fire Resistant (15), Need not Eat, Demon, Flying, Stealthy (65!), Chaos Power (1), Spreads Death

Now we're getting into the good Daeva. Zaurvi is the only Greater Daeva with a decent stealth score. Admittedly 65 isn't great, but compared to 25 it's much better. Her thing is that she's opposed to the Spenta of Plants, and so spreads Death around in the province she's in. Which isn't amazing but, you know, better than nothing. The best part is that she has 5 death, which means that she can summon Tartarians by forging the appropriate boosters for herself. I shouldn't have to remind you that Tartarians are big, nasty and cost only 10 fucking death gems to summon. Yeah, they have afflictions and shattered soul and junk, but I'd take 6 Tartarians to a Daeva any day. Unless it was Zaurvi, maybe.

Akem Manah the Daeva of Evil Intentions
HP: 44, Protection: 7, MR: 18, Morale: 18
Strength: 14, Attack: 14, Defense: 14, Precision: 14
Encumbrance: 1, Movement: 3/16, Leadership: 145
Usual slots, has a magic staff which is passable.
4D3B3H
Sacred, Fear (9), Invulnerability (15), Fire Resistant (15), Need not Eat, Demon, Flying, Stealthy (25), Chaos Power (1), Spreads Chaos

Besides having the title of a sunday morning cartoon villain, Akem is pretty good. Mostly because he can summon vampires all by himself, which is sorta ironic given that he opposes the Spenta of Animals. And when you don't need him you can plop him in enemy territory to spread chaos to help power up the other Daevas for when you attack. Other than that he isn't too special, but... blood. Admittedly Caelum will never be a great blood nation, especially since they have to sacrifice 15 gems for a blood hunter, but blood magic does have some useful items and rituals that they could definitely use. And you know, fucking awesome immortal vampires to defend your dominion.

Saurva the Daeva of Oppression
HP: 44, Protection: 0, MR: 18, Morale: 18
Strength: 14, Attack: 14, Defense: 14, Precision: 14
Encumbrance: 1, Movement: 3/16, Leadership: 165
Usual slots, has a magic staff which is okay.
4F3B4H
Sacred, Fear (5), Invulnerability (20), Fire Resistant (23), Need not Eat, Demon, Flying, Population Killer (50), Spreads Order(!)

I've saved the best for last. Saurva has blood, has excellent fire magic, and best of all... No goddamn chaos power. Which means that his stats don't care about the massive order dominions that everybody will use, so he is always ready to kick some ass. Except, ironically enough, fire and blood magic don't really have good buffs for a thug/SC. Yeah. Still, with some good gear he should be able to fly around and mess shit up. Oddly he spreads order around at the cost of 50 people a turn. Which is more interesting than anything else, since your dominion will probably spread order already, and losing 50 people a turn is pretty much nothing. Saurva is the mortal enemy of the Spenta of Sky and Metals, just roll with it.

So... yeah. That's all of Caelum's new summons. Unfortunately they're more expensive than powerful, but I'm sure that they have their uses, and at the very least they provide some needed magic diversity to Caelum. Could be worse I guess, and nothing is forcing you to use them after all.

Oh and the Call of the Drugvant (The Thaum 7 spell) is kinda... underwhelming. It summons a random number of villains, Daeva and commanders to lead them. _{The Daeva are led by a special Ahu commander which is basically a Daeva with 2H and leadership.} The problem is the random part. I've seen as few as 2 Daeva and as many as 9 from the few tests I did and the success of the attack largely depends on how many show up. So you're pretty much throwing away 15 gems for an attack that may or may not work against PD. Yeah... At least the Daevas disappear after the attack, so all that's left is the villains defending the place. Though if you can stomp 20 villains, you should probably be able to stomp PD. Oh well.

[tompliss]

what is disappointing, with all those Stealth 25 summons is that stealth boosters are either Nature-based and cheap, or Astral-based, higher in the constr tree, and expensive (constr4, S2, for +20 stealth)... :/


EDIT: @ E. Albright : Well, looks like there are 2 modding keys for Stealth boosting items... I think that's because the Death+Earth ones give stealth even if you don't have before, and the Astral/Nature ones only boost natural stealth. :/
Anyway, the death/earth ones can be crafted, at least by LA Caelum and lucky EA Caelum (even if 10 gems for 20 stealth is a bit much, when you already spent many in summoning) ...

[E. Albright]

Well, there's a couple of moderate-priced death ones in the middle of the tree, but they both take earth too, so that's not overwhelmingly helpful...

[USEC_OFFICER]

what is disappointing, with all those Stealth 25 summons is that stealth boosters are either Nature-based and cheap, or Astral-based, higher in the constr tree, and expensive (constr4, S2, for +20 stealth)... :/

It's not too bad. Remember that Summon Yata can give you 3S mages to forge the equipment, and the Yazads have Astral/Nature mages as well. But considering that you have to dump 40 gems to summon one... Maybe that's not the best idea.

EDIT: @ E. Albright : Well, looks like there are 2 modding keys for Stealth boosting items... I think that's because the Death+Earth ones give stealth even if you don't have before, and the Astral/Nature ones only boost natural stealth. :/
Anyway, the death/earth ones can be crafted, at least by LA Caelum and lucky EA Caelum

Actually EA Caelum can forge the Death/Earth stealth boosters naturally-ish. The Harab Seraphs in EA now get a A/E/D random, so you just have to forge a skull staff and hand it off to a E random. But... Then your Greater Daeva just lost an armour or miscellaneous slot to boost their stealth. Or more likely both. It's... sorta stupid.

(even if 10 gems for 20 stealth is a bit much, when you already spent many in summoning) ...

Just because you've spent the gems doesn't mean that you should keep throwing gems at it to make it better. Or something like that. Honestly I'm crossing my fingers for a buff to the Greater Daeva since they're so lackluster now, but that patch will probably nerf the Parikia too so... *shrug*

Also, the Dominions Mod Inspector finally has the new patch up... sorta. The spells/summoning things are broken and some of the units don't have all of their abilities listed, but it's probably better than looking at my rambles.

[Il Palazzo]

Does anyone know what is the rationale behind Ether Gate costing 90 astral gems? It always baffled me why was it made so prohibitively expensive, when it doesn't really net you anything that powerful in return. The Ether Warriors are nice but are not going to survive many close encounters with regular combat magic, and the Ether Lord is not that much different magic-wise from a cheap Spectral Mage.

[Delta Foxtrot]

I thought the prevailing consensus was that the dev team can't balance MP if their lives depended on it

No, I don't know the rationale. Were the summons in dom3 vanilla free of similar issues?

[Frumple]

Sweet zeus, no. Summon pricing has been a snafu since the beginning, from what I understand.

[Karlito]

For what it's worth, Ether Gate is exactly the same in Dominions 3. I wonder how long it's been since they even thought about the cost of the spell.

[Mindmaker]

What sort of mage/army ratio do you guys use?
Currently 25 turns in and I have 6 dedicated fireball throwers, 3 Flare/Prison of Fire users and another StR mage for the leadership bonus and for any of the upcoming higher tier spells. Just feels like a bit of overkill for an an army of ~125, but I've got little experience in playing against human players.

I really want to hit the sweet spot where I get most out of them without gimping my research and wasting bigger spells on mostly empty tiles.

[Il Palazzo]

It makes little sense to try and prescribe any singular army composition, as the correct approach always depends on local factors.
If your regular/sacred troops are good enough to mop up enemy armies, you don't need mage support, and the eggheads are better employed researching, searching or forging. If you face enemy troops that are too tough to deal, you need to employ mages, even if it means reducing your research capacity to zero.
It's all about adaptation.

[PrimusRibbus]

Mage/army ratio is a tough one. It varies wildly depending on what era, nation, strategy, opponents, and situation you have. I like to think of it more in terms of: What is the baseline composition for my nation/era/strategy? How far can I deviate from that baseline in response to things? How quickly can I do those deviations?

I err towards a low number of mages because there are fights that you are just going to lose period. It's better to write off a couple mages here and there than to lose many mages in one shot and have your entire strategy derailed.

[Mindmaker]

Well I mean examples, experiences, anecdotes and the sort.

Guess I'll just rush that merry little group into combat in two turns and find out.
I'll probably leave 4 of those fireball throwers at home for research purposeses though.